Teach Us To Pray # 1

Teach Us To Pray # 1

"Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1).

We live and develop physically by exercise. We are saved by faith, but we must work out our salvation by doing the things God wills. The more we do for God, the more God will do through us. Faith will increase by experience.

If you are a stranger to prayer you are a stranger to the greatest test source of power known to human beings. If we cared for our physical life in the same lackadaisical way that we care for our spiritual, we would be as weak physically as we are spiritually. You go week in and week out without prayer. I want to be a giant for God. You don't even sing; you let the choir do it. You go to prayer meetings and offer no testimony.

You are a stranger to the great privilege that is offered to human beings. Some of the greatest blessings that people enjoy come from prayer. In earnest prayer you think as the Lord directs, and lose yourself in Him.

Some people say: "It's no use to pray. The Lord knows everything anyway." That's true. He does. He is not limited, as I am limited. He knows everything and has known it since before the world was. We don't know everybody who is going to be converted at this revival, but that doesn't relieve us of our duty. We don't know, and we must do the work He has commanded us to do.

Others say: "But I don't get what I pray for." Well, there's a cause for everything. Get at the cause and you'll be all right. If you are sick and send for the doctor, he pays no attention to the disease, but looks at what produced it. If you have a headache, don't rub your forehead. In Matthew it is written, "Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you." If your prayers are not answered you are not right with God. If you have no faith, if your motive is wrong, then your prayers will be in vain. Many times when people pray they are selfish. They are not gripping the word. I believe that when many a wife prays for the conversion of her husband, it isn't because she really desires the salvation of his soul, but because she thinks if he were converted things would be easier for her personally. Pray for your neighbors as well as your own family. The pastor of one church does not pray for the congregation of another denomination. I'm not saying anything against denominations. I believe in them.  I believe they are of God. Denominations represent different temperaments. A man with warm emotions would not make a good Episcopalian, but he would make a crackerjack Methodist. Oh, the curse of selfishness! The Church is dying for religion, for religion pure and undefiled. Pure religion and undefiled is visiting the widow and the fatherless (James 1:27) and doing the will of God without so much thought of yourself! I tell you, a lot of people are going to be fooled the Day of Judgment.

Isaiah says the hand of God is not shortened and His ear is not deaf (59:1). No, his hand is not shortened so that it cannot save. He has provided agencies by which we can be saved. If He had made no provision for your salvation, then the trouble would be with God, but He has, so if you go to hell the trouble will be with you!

In Ezekiel we read that men have taken idols into their hearts and put stumbling-blocks before their faces (14:3). God is not going to hear you if you place clothes, money, pride of relationship before Him. You know there is sin in your life. Many people know there is sin in their lives, yet ask God to bless them. They ought to get down on their knees and pray, "God be merciful to me a sinner" (Luke 18:13).

Some people are too contemptibly stingy for God to hear them. God won't hear you if you stop your ears to the cries of the poor. You drag along here for three weeks and raise a paltry sum that a circus would take out of town in two hours. When they give things to the poor they rip off the buttons and the fine braid. Some people pick out old clothes that the moths have made into sieves and give them to the poor and think they are charitable. That isn't charity, no sir, it's charity when you'll give something you'll miss. It's charity when you feel it to give.

And when you stand praying, forgive if you have aught (anything) against anyone. It's no use to pray if you have a mean, miserable disposition, if you are grouchy, if you quarrel in your home or with your neighbors.

It's no use to pray for a blessing when you have a fuss on with your neighbors. It doesn't do any good. You go to a sewing society meeting to make mosquito netting for the Eskimo and blankets for the Hottentots, and  instead you sit and chew the rag and rip some woman up the back. The spirit of God flees from strife and discord.

People say: "She is a good woman, but a worldly Christian." What? Might as well speak of a heavenly devil! Might as well expect a mummy to speak and bear children as that kind to move the world God-ward. Prayer draws you nearer to God.

Learning From Jesus

"Teach us to pray," implies that I want to be taught. It's a great privilege to be taught by Jesus. A friend of mine was preaching out in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and had to go to a hospital in Chicago for an operation, and I was asked to go and preach in his place. Alexander was leading the singing, and one night Charles (Butler) called a little girl out of the audience to sing. She didn't look over four or five years of age, though she might have been a little older. I thought, "What's the use? His little voice can never be heard over this crowd." But Charles stood her up in a chair by the pulpit and she threw back her head and out rolled some of the sweetest music I have ever heard. It was wonderful. I sat there and the tears streamed down my cheeks. That little girl was the daughter of a Northwestern engineer and he took her to Chicago when her mother was away. It was a great privilege that little girl had, but it's a greater privilege to learn from Jesus Christ how to pray.

~Billy Sunday~

(continued with # 2)